THEATER REVIEW

THEATER REVIEW; A Weill Musical Cavalcade Ranges Across Continents

By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

Published: September 1, 2000

At the Triad Theater it's a grand night for singers.

And why not? The composer who is the sole focus of their performance is none other than Kurt Weill, who was born 100 years ago and died in 1950.

So the 31 songs in the revue ''Berlin to Broadway With Kurt Weill'' include everything from the familiar ''Mack the Knife,'' ''Surabaya Johnny,'' ''Bilbao Song,'' ''September Song,'' ''Speak Low'' and ''Lost in the Stars'' to lesser known works like ''Deep in Alaska,'' ''As You Make Your Bed'' and ''Ain't It Awful, the Heat?''

Between songs the four singers give a once-over-lightly to the biography of Weill, who was forced to reinvent himself as a composer in a career that took him from the politically engaged theater of a Germany in transition from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich into exile in France and eventually to the United States and the Broadway theater.

So like Weill himself ''Berlin to Broadway With Kurt Weill'' gives evidence of a dual personality. While likable as a whole and filled with songs of great beauty and evocative power, its first half, devoted to Weill's work in Europe, never seems to find the dark undercurrents that informed so much of his creativity.

The cast of four, who are the beneficiaries of the able musical direction and arrangements of Eric Stern at the piano, seems a good deal more comfortable after intermission when the show concerns itself with Weill's career in America and shows like ''Knickerbocker Holiday,'' ''Lady in the Dark,'' ''One Touch of Venus,'' ''Street Scene'' and ''Lost in the Stars.''

As a result, while ''Mack the Knife'' from ''Threepenny Opera'' seems to lack its customary acid when the cast addresses it in the first act, one could hear a pin drop when the four singers, led by the Swedish-born baritone Bjorn Olsson, performed ''Lost in the Stars'' in the second.

Unlike the rest of the cast, Mr. Olsson, who has the looks and panache of a leading man, appears at home in the German lyrics that lend a bitter edge to renditions of some songs in Act I; and the tenor Michael Winther shows off the proper comic spirit with Mr. Olsson in the drunken reminiscence of ''Bilbao Song,'' ''Mandalay Song'' and ''Progress'' and proves a hopeful interpreter of the antiwar ''Johnny's Song'' in Weill's first American show, ''Johnny Johnson.''

The soprano Veronica Mittenzwei and the mezzo-soprano Lorinda Lisitza bring cultivated voices to their assignments, even though some of their interpretations prove less than convincing.

If ''Berlin to Broadway With Kurt Weill'' is not a flawless revue, it is nevertheless an ingratiating tribute to his achievement.